There is a growing disconnect between Houston and Wall Street over when slumping oil prices will recover. Beaten down by a seven-month rout that slashed crude prices from over $147 a barrel last summer to $42 a barrel, producers are bracing for oil to remain at about $60 a barrel for as long as the next five years or so, according to executives gathered this week at the industry’s biggest annual conference. They are shedding staff and slashing spending because they reckon that prices will remain depressed. “We’re lower for longer,” said BP CEO Bob Dudley. But the financial community is already looking for the upside, buying up energy equities and plotting private equity acquisitions in a bet that the oil price cycle may turn more quickly than the industry expects. “There is clearly a gap in view between the strategics and the financial community,” David […]